Eastern Misadventures With A GPS (Part 2)

Next stop: Half Moon Bay, some 30km from Khobar.

Our otherwise-totally-out-of-date Lonely Planet guide said that this was a pleasant spot for expatriates, and the beach one of the most beautiful in the area.

Not quite. 

Eastern Misadventures With A GPS (Part 1)

There are very few old things left in Khobar city.  It used to be just a sleepy little port along the Persian Gulf; the end point for frankincense-carrying camels travelling from Yemen across the Saudi desert.

The discovery of oil in the 1930s changed all that. Almost overnight, Khobar became the centre of Saudi’s booming oil industry and the fastest growing city in Arabia.

From camel to Chrysler and from souk to skyscraper, all in one generation…

Saudi Cultural Festivals and Unexpected Instruments

About 45 kilometres outside Riyadh is a small village called Janadriyah. For two weeks every year, most of Riyadh heads out of the city. They travel through the desert, past the endless camel souks, until eventually they arrive at Janadriyah for the annual Cultural and Heritage Festival.

Lady laws and male lingerie attendants

Coming from New Zealand, I’m used to being independent. Driving to work each day, meeting friends for coffee, going to the movies.  It’s a good life.

But for women in Saudi, the very opposite is true. Life is one long list of ‘must nots’.

Saudi women cannot drive.

In fact, they cannot even get in a car or plane without the personal or written permission of a male relative. No room for any spontaneous flights of fancy. Not anywhere.

Only men work in Saudi.  

Well, more accurately, Saudi women only work on very rare occasions. And then, they must be physically separated from the potentially dire risk of contact with men, even to the point of having completely separate elevators.

But girls can be educated as far as university.

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Muddled Bloodtest

Alexander and the Terrible Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day used to be a favourite book in our home. It finishes with, “Some days are like that, even in Timbuktu.”

I’ve just had an Alexander kind of day.

Until the muttawa appeared, lunch in the family section of the Faisailah food court was just fine. Muttawa are religious police. They enforce the Islamic dress code, separation of men and women, and prayer attendance. They patrol Riyadh and can appear pretty much anywhere, any time.

Faisailah Mall